Alexandria needs to be very very careful. They are playing with fire. Make no mistake; the real cause that animates the vast majority of those agitating for deaconesses is women priestesses. For them this is the camel's nose under the tent flap. Some may say that I am being unduly alarmist, but I've seen this game played too many times in other religious sects. Any attempt to go down the road of W/O would almost certainly end in schism.
Yes. I'm persuaded by the arguments of Fr. Lawrence Farley, Deacon Patrick Mitchell, and others that the arguments in favor of deaconesses (let's please not say female deacons) are weak at best but that, even if the case was stronger, the prevailing cultural climate would press the Church not to stop there, and therefore the entire idea is a manifestly bad one.
Not just schism. It is my observation that those branches of Christianity that experiment with W/O pretty much dry up & blow away.
An interesting article just out on Power Line about how Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia is preparing to tear out plaques commemorating George Washington & Robert E. Lee. In the comments following it is reported that all four of the clergy serving are female.
Hmmmm.
It's interesting that the objection to Deaconesses comes essentially from converts and is couched in terms of American (or Western) political categories. Either in and of itself should be sufficient to arouse suspicion.
By the way the purchase of pews is a disgrace as is, for some reason requiring frequent reminder, the owning of a human for chattel labor, from a Christian standpoint, at least. Most Orthodox would view the honoring of American politicians in the place of icons of Christ and His Mother to be objectionable as well. Perhaps we deserve to remain completely obscure if Americanism supersedes Christ in the attitude of our communities.
